True Guilt vs. False Guilt

How can you tell the difference between true and false guilt?

In the Bible, sin is very specific. It is a violation of the Laws of God. We are guilty when we disobey one of God’s Commandments. Sin is failing to worship God alone, it is making or worshipping an idol, taking God’s Name in vain, desecrating the Sabbath, dishonoring our parents, taking innocent life, committing adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and covetousness.

In the Bible, true guilt and repentance is specific and personal, not vague or manipulated by others. Biblical restitution is to be made by the culprit to the victim – directly and entirely. Biblically, true guilt is when I personally violate a specific command in Scripture. False guilt, or psychological guilt, is a result of selective focus, distortion of reality and certainly not from God. It is vague and it involves guilt manipulation.

When we repent of our personal guilt in violating God’s Commands, the result is forgiveness, freedom, healing and restoration. However, you can repent for false or psychological guilt every day for decades, but you will never find freedom and forgiveness from false guilt, because the devil is a hard taskmaster.

The Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin to lead us to repentance. On the other side of repentance is forgiveness and freedom, healing and restoration.

By way of contrast, the devil and/or other people bring condemnation in order to paralyze and enslave us.

We have enough real sins and genuine guilt of today to deal with, without having to deal with sins and shortcomings other people and/or satan want to hand us. We’ve all known those people that are never responsible for their own circumstances, right? It’s always someone else’s fault they are in the situation they are in. They often believe we ‘should’ help them because they are merely victims of circumstance. Any deviation in what they want from you and what you can do is seen as a shortcoming on your part! A common manipulation is to throw your faith at you. “You call yourself a Christian and…(fill in the blank)” Regardless of what comes after the ‘and’, they are trying to manipulate your emotions by attacking your faith. If you feel guilty because you cannot meet their expectation, need or desire, KNOW that is false guilt.

When our children have specific needs, we want to help where and how we can. However, when we cannot help, we stand on prayer and trust in God to meet their needs. If we feel guilty because we could not ‘fix it’, that would be a false guilt because it was not a violation or sin against God. Letting them learn to lean on God in their own lives is the best help and gift we could ever give them.  

On a personal level, are you personally guilty of theft? Greed? Gossip? Pride? Envy? Malice? Covetousness? Selfishness? Bitterness? Unforgiveness? If God were to speak to you today, with what sins would He confront you? You know that He wouldn’t be bringing up other people’s sins, He would deal with what you personally are responsible for and guilty of. “The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, etc.”

We have enough sins of our own that we are personally guilty of, without wasting our time following the agenda of guilt manipulators seeking to cover us in a mantle of guilt so we will meet their needs. 

Differentiating between true guilt and false guilt can be answered with one question: Did I sin against God? If not, shake it off, it is not yours to own and Jesus died to free us from condemnation. Don’t allow His death to be in vain for your life by carrying around a burden of false guilt. His burden is light…..